- 12 hours ago
American Masters - Season 40 Episode 1 - Elie Wiesel: Soul On Fire
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00:00.
00:00:05.
00:00:26Ellie spent most of his life looking for the shadows, seeking out the darkness.
00:00:56In the hope that he could do something about it.
00:01:13Last night, I saw my mother in a dream.
00:01:17She seemed upset and I realized that something serious had happened.
00:01:22She motioned me to follow her.
00:01:27Then suddenly I saw my father.
00:01:30He was wearing my grey suit.
00:01:33It looked good on him.
00:01:37We were all there, everyone from before and from now, standing at a river that all at
00:01:48once began to swell, its level rising from moment to moment.
00:01:55It's the flood, someone said quite calmly, it's the flood, but I am not afraid.
00:02:04Just then my father waded into the murky blood colored water and I said to myself, so rivers
00:02:10of blood exist after all.
00:02:13He stayed beneath the water.
00:02:18I began to shout for help, but everyone was suddenly gone.
00:02:26I don't know how to swim, so I panicked, screaming louder and louder, but I was all alone.
00:02:35And I found him.
00:02:39I don't know what power aided me.
00:02:41All I know is that I managed to save him all by myself.
00:02:46I helped him stretch out on the grass, listen to his breathing.
00:02:52In my dream he was alive.
00:02:55My mother too, in my dream.
00:03:01Whether we want it or not, we are still living in the era of the Holocaust.
00:03:07The language is the language of the Holocaust.
00:03:10The fears are linked to it.
00:03:13The perspectives, unfortunately, are tied to it.
00:03:20The first time we met, I asked Eli, what do you actually do?
00:03:25And he answered me with a smile, he said, I'm a storyteller, a teller of tales.
00:03:37The first tale I always tell comes from the darkest hour of my generation.
00:03:44I was young, almost a child, when I saw it unfold before my eyes.
00:03:52Somewhere in the kingdom of the Holocaust, 1944.
00:04:07In my small town, somewhere in the Carpathian mountains, I knew where I was.
00:04:22I knew why I was born.
00:04:25I knew why I existed.
00:04:32Now, I no longer know anything.
00:04:40As in a dusty mirror, I look at my childhood, and I wonder if it is mine.
00:04:52In Siget, my town, Shabbat began on Friday afternoon.
00:04:58Shops closed well before sundown.
00:05:01After the ritual bath, my father would walk to services, dressed for the occasion.
00:05:07Sometimes my father would take my hand, as though to protect me, as we passed the nearby
00:05:11police station of the central prison of the main square.
00:05:14I liked it when he did that, and I like to remember it now.
00:05:21The merchants conducted their businesses.
00:05:26The students studied Talmud.
00:05:29The beggars wandered from house to house to get a bit of food for Shabbat to their families.
00:05:35Life was normal.
00:05:38I would give so much to be able to relieve a Shabbat in my small town.
00:05:44The whiteness of the tablecloth.
00:05:48The blinking candle flames.
00:05:52The beaming faces around me.
00:05:56The melodious voice of my grandfather inviting the angels of the Sabbath to accompany him
00:06:04to our home.
00:06:06It is this Shabbat that I miss.
00:06:11The whole feeling of religious Jewish family celebrating Shabbat.
00:06:18To early Shabbat is the ultimate thing.
00:06:21Shabbat is, it's what his home, what it meant to him.
00:06:26It was a very happy souvenir, at this moment, before the war.
00:06:32It was really, really a beautiful life.
00:06:36Since the age of 3 or 4 years, my poor mother and my father,
00:06:41we took a professor who, since I read and read Hebrew as if it was my maternal language,
00:06:51we gave us the religious education.
00:06:54I come from a very religious background, very religious family.
00:06:59My dream was to become a teacher of Talmud.
00:07:03We Jews in Hungary, in our ghetto, we didn't know about Auschwitz.
00:07:14People tried to hang on to a fragment of hope, in spite of logic.
00:07:20They said to one another, it's inconceivable, after all, that the Hungarians would send us all away.
00:07:26How could a town go on functioning without its physicians and businessmen,
00:07:33without its watchmakers and tailors?
00:07:36The town needs us, society needs us.
00:07:40No one among us, and truly not I, still young to possess the sense of reality,
00:07:45could imagine that they will come a day darker than others,
00:07:50when we too will be going towards the unknown.
00:07:56In 1944, very quickly, things happened.
00:08:01Between Passover and Shavuot, seven weeks, the ghetto was created,
00:08:10transports began, and the entire city,
00:08:16there were from 12,000 to 15,000 Jews, were sent to Auschwitz.
00:08:26I left my native town in the spring of 1944.
00:08:30It was a beautiful day.
00:08:32The surrounding mountains, in their green light, seemed taller than usual.
00:08:38Our neighbours were out strolling in their shirt sleeves.
00:08:42Some turned their heads away, others sneered.
00:08:46At times I tell myself that I have never really left the place where I was born.
00:08:51In my study over the table where I work, there hangs a single photograph.
00:08:58It shows my parents' home in Segal.
00:09:01When I look up, that is what I see.
00:09:04And it seems to be telling me,
00:09:06don't forget where you came from.
00:09:09When we arrived in Auschwitz, my father looked through the window and said,
00:09:18scared of Auschwitz.
00:09:20The name meant nothing to us.
00:09:24Immediately separated us from my mother and my sisters.
00:09:29I remained with my father.
00:09:32Everything was so fast.
00:09:34And then something strange happened to me.
00:09:37When I saw these hundreds and hundreds and thousands of Jews coming from all over Europe,
00:09:43speaking all languages, belonging to all cultures, to all conditions.
00:09:48I had the feeling this is a messianic event.
00:09:52The messiah is coming.
00:09:57To a claim both not a messiah, but death as messiah.
00:10:01My mother knew surely that there was no hope.
00:10:16Because she told me in the last minute to my sister,
00:10:19stay always together, stay always together.
00:10:22And she told me, go and tell me to stay with her and with her.
00:10:27And I ran from the other side.
00:10:29It was right away.
00:10:30Papa, stay with her.
00:10:32Stay with her.
00:10:33Stay with him.
00:10:34Like that.
00:10:35I stayed with my father.
00:10:39And the last words of my mother were to stay together.
00:10:44And I read, I read the last time, my little sister, in his manteau rouge,
00:10:53that she received for the Pâques.
00:10:57And my two grand sister, my mother and grandmother, who avance.
00:11:05And I entered into a sort of real dream.
00:11:09It was a nightmare.
00:11:11I saw cars coming.
00:11:14And I saw that in the flammes,
00:11:18in the flammes,
00:11:21in the flammes,
00:11:24a living baby.
00:11:27I closed my eyes.
00:11:31And for a few moments, I walked with my eyes closed.
00:11:36Always,
00:11:37m'accrochant aux bras de mon père.
00:11:43Les bébés étaient vivants.
00:11:48De ma mère,
00:11:49c'était...
00:11:50Elle avait 44 ans.
00:11:54Elle n'est pas revenue.
00:11:55Bien sûr.
00:11:57Bien sûr.
00:11:58Et ma petite soeur, à l'âge de 10 ans.
00:12:00Auschwitz was the name of a little railroad station.
00:12:08Even inside Auschwitz,
00:12:11they did not believe that Auschwitz was something else
00:12:15than a little railroad station.
00:12:16that Auschwitz became a center of Jewish history.
00:12:21Oh, yes.
00:12:23At that point, and at that period,
00:12:26Jewish history ran through Auschwitz,
00:12:29and not through New York,
00:12:31or London, or Stockholm.
00:12:34We didn't know that.
00:12:35I'm sure that many people went to their death,
00:12:39not even believing afterwards,
00:12:43that they were dead.
00:12:50Everything died in Auschwitz.
00:12:53Ideals died there.
00:12:55Men died there.
00:12:57The idea of God, the image of God changed,
00:13:00underwent a horrifying metamorphosis there.
00:13:03It was my father who kept me alive.
00:13:07We saw it together.
00:13:10And I wanted him to live.
00:13:13I knew that if I die, he would die.
00:13:16He would die.
00:13:18The Marche de la Mort,
00:13:19that's what we call it.
00:13:22The 18th of January.
00:13:26And suddenly, we told us that we had to evacuate the camp.
00:13:30We were dissipating, and we were walking, and we were walking.
00:13:33We were walking.
00:13:35Those who couldn't walk,
00:13:37who were sitting in the neck,
00:13:39with a ball in the neck.
00:13:40And we were walking.
00:13:41We heard these bullets, these bullets, all the time.
00:13:45And me and my father, together, we were walking.
00:13:49And my father and me, we were watching,
00:13:51so we didn't sleep.
00:13:53It was too dangerous.
00:13:55Then the train came,
00:13:58and we were open in the snow.
00:14:01We were getting wet.
00:14:02Or should I?
00:14:06And we arrived to Buchenwald.
00:14:10It was hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people in one barrack.
00:14:15My father got sick, diarrhea.
00:14:21And one night,
00:14:25I heard him call me.
00:14:28And that morning, he died.
00:14:32And I felt he wanted to tell me something.
00:14:37But he couldn't.
00:14:40And again, even today, I tried to figure out what was his testament.
00:14:45What did he want to tell me?
00:14:47The thing that personally touched him the most,
00:14:52of being in a concentration camp,
00:14:54was the fact that he couldn't help his father.
00:14:58His father was dying,
00:15:00and he asked him to come and help him.
00:15:03And he couldn't.
00:15:05That was a deep, deep wound.
00:15:10One day, really, I saw myself in that mirror.
00:15:13And I saw a person who was ageless, nameless, faceless.
00:15:21A person who belonged to another world,
00:15:26the world of the dead.
00:15:31One of the things that every survivor has to face,
00:15:36and does face today,
00:15:38is the fact of its own survival.
00:15:41He somehow is ashamed of still being here,
00:15:44and not part of the others who are no longer here.
00:15:53In that place of eternal darkness and silence,
00:15:56we lived not only with the dead,
00:15:59we lived in death.
00:16:01I belonged to a group called the Buchenwald children.
00:16:18We were 400 children in Buchenwald.
00:16:21Then the American army liberated camp.
00:16:24The youngest was eight, seven or eight.
00:16:28The oldest was 18 or 19.
00:16:31I was 16.
00:16:36Then France offered us refuge.
00:16:44That train ride, which lasted a few days, was very special.
00:16:47We received from the American army, I remember, cookies.
00:16:51And the first thing we did, we shared our cookies.
00:16:59When we arrived, they separated us in two groups.
00:17:04Those who were religious and the others.
00:17:06I had outbursts of anger, of despair too.
00:17:14But the moment we came to France, in that children's home,
00:17:18I re-became religious.
00:17:23Those homes were very, very special,
00:17:25and I remember these homes with great, great affection
00:17:29and tenderness and melancholy and nostalgia.
00:17:32And that was the beginning of the surrogate families they had,
00:17:38of the big bonds of friendship that's more than friendship.
00:17:44That's really like brothers, more than brothers,
00:17:48that you still see so today.
00:17:49We didn't cry.
00:17:56Maybe because people were afraid.
00:18:00If they were to start crying, they would never end.
00:18:09Our problem was how to adjust to death.
00:18:11It was normal to go to sleep with corpses,
00:18:17and wake up with corpses, wondering whether you are not one of them.
00:18:21After the war, it was difficult once more to see in death a scandal.
00:18:28To see in death once more a source of pain.
00:18:31One day there were journalists who came to do a story about our,
00:18:43after all, children from Buchenwald.
00:18:45It was a good story.
00:18:47I played chess with a friend.
00:18:50They took pictures, all right.
00:18:53And then later I was in the office of the director.
00:18:55And I heard him speak on the telephone, mentioning my name.
00:19:02I said, I heard you mention my name.
00:19:05He said, oh, you are Wiesel?
00:19:06I said, yes.
00:19:07He said, I just spoke to your sister.
00:19:11I said, Mr. Director, I don't believe it.
00:19:14What do you mean? It must be a mistake.
00:19:16Even if she remains alive, what is she doing in France?
00:19:19If she's in France, how does she know I'm here?
00:19:21He said, but she has a message for you.
00:19:25She will wait for you tomorrow at the railway station in Paris.
00:19:30I didn't sleep all night, as you can imagine.
00:19:33Then came next day, and there she was.
00:19:37The day, one of my beautiful sisters brought a journal to the house, where I was in Paris.
00:19:55I looked and said, that's my brother.
00:19:58She said, no, it's not possible.
00:20:01I said, yes, that's my brother.
00:20:02My brother, who is with the jacket,
00:20:05it's this photo that I saw in Paris.
00:20:08And it's because of this photo that we met.
00:20:16We were saved.
00:20:17We were saved.
00:20:25Unfortunately, she died in Canada.
00:20:28She was called Beatrice Jackson, Ney Wiesel.
00:20:39It's her destiny.
00:20:41Hilda simply saw my picture in the paper.
00:20:44She had met an Algerian Jew in the DP camp immediately after the war,
00:20:50and she followed him to marry him in Paris.
00:20:52She was named by Paris.
00:20:54After that, I married a brother with her husband.
00:21:02And my father here is,
00:21:04which is called Sydney.
00:21:06I was born in Paris.
00:21:09Here, the laser line was my card.
00:21:14There was also my baby-sitter.
00:21:15And I remember today, I tell you, I have this here in the air,
00:21:21how he was singing.
00:21:30How he was singing. How he was singing.
00:21:35I left the children's home. I went to Paris.
00:21:40I cut myself off from the city and from life for weeks on end.
00:21:46I lived in a room which was much more like a prison cell.
00:21:56Large enough for only one.
00:22:00I looked only at the sand river bearing along its foam.
00:22:04I no longer perceived the sky mirrored in it.
00:22:10And I threw myself immediately into learning.
00:22:13I was looking for myself. I was fleeing from myself.
00:22:20And always there was this taste of failure.
00:22:23A friend went to visit Elie Wiesel.
00:22:34And he goes into a small little apartment and the room is pitch black.
00:22:39And there's just a single candle burning.
00:22:43There's classical music playing.
00:22:46He's not saying anything.
00:22:48My friend said he could tell that he knew I was there.
00:22:53After a bit of time, he just turned around and left.
00:22:58I remember once asking him, how can you write so fluently?
00:23:08And he said, I get up at four in the morning.
00:23:11I just sit in front of the white page and my hand goes to the pen.
00:23:15And it starts writing.
00:23:17And it starts writing.
00:23:18The act of writing is for me often nothing more than the secret of
00:23:23conscience desire to carve words on a tombstone.
00:23:38To the memory of all those I loved and who before I could tell them I loved them, went away.
00:23:59To the memory of all those I loved and who before I could tell them I loved them.
00:24:18The coffee in which I am right now is empty.
00:24:25Almost as empty as my heart.
00:24:27I'm alive.
00:24:29I'm here for one hour.
00:24:30I'm here for one hour.
00:24:31I'm here for one hour.
00:24:32It's so strange and strange.
00:24:34And then this feeling of solitude.
00:24:39We feel alone.
00:24:42He had migraine headaches.
00:24:44Terrible headaches.
00:24:47The pain that this caused.
00:24:49The torment.
00:24:50The anguish.
00:24:54I drew away from people.
00:24:55No tie, no liaison came to interrupt my solitude.
00:24:59I lived only in books where my memory tried to rejoin a more immense and ordered memory.
00:25:06And the more I remembered, the more I felt excluded and alone.
00:25:11I had lost my faith in many things and I had lost my sense of belonging and orientation.
00:25:23And my faith in God was shaken.
00:25:25I found myself living in the ghetto.
00:25:34He told me that he lived or spent a lot of time with the clochard, the homeless in Paris.
00:25:43And he didn't open his mouth for almost a year.
00:25:46And when he opened his mouth, he had French.
00:25:49He had it.
00:25:51I remained with French because I acquired the French language in France.
00:25:56And I needed a new language.
00:25:59I needed it like a home, a new home.
00:26:02His French was fluent but not perfect.
00:26:04But he did all of his writing in French all along, even though he really had only spent a few years in France,
00:26:14where he spent many more years in this country.
00:26:17I was sent by a French paper to Israel in 1949 to cover the immigration from the DP camps.
00:26:26And I went there for a few months and came back to Paris, remained a foreign correspondent in Paris.
00:26:32I thought it was interesting that he was a reporter because I thought maybe that was part of his way of dealing with it.
00:26:40That if you report on things, you sort of have to learn about them and then you're telling other people about them.
00:26:50And maybe that was a way back into reality.
00:27:00Things have changed in the world.
00:27:03And perhaps the world itself has changed.
00:27:10Things have I.
00:27:20When I write, I have the feeling, literally, physically, that my grandfather and my mother is looking over my shoulder and reading what I am writing.
00:27:31I want to be sure that the words will be the proper words.
00:27:36At one point, I decided to write my testimony.
00:27:43I had made a vow in 45 to wait 10 years.
00:27:48I wanted my language to be the monument to our people, especially to those who died.
00:27:54How does one overcome trauma?
00:27:56Well, he overcame it through becoming a witness.
00:28:02Night, of course, was the epicenter.
00:28:08He wrote the original book in Yiddish.
00:28:11It was published in Argentina.
00:28:16My manuscript was 864 pages.
00:28:20It was called to develop a Kershwin and the world was silent.
00:28:23I wrote it for the other survivors who found it difficult to speak.
00:28:33And I wanted really to tell them, look, you must speak.
00:28:37Ten years after Buffalo, I see that the world forgets.
00:28:49The German army has resurrected.
00:28:52World criminals walk in the streets.
00:28:56The past has been erased from God.
00:28:59Germans and anti-Semites tell the world that the story of the six million Jewish that is only a legend.
00:29:08And the naive world would believe in it, if not today, then tomorrow.
00:29:15The world that was silent yesterday will remain silent tomorrow.
00:29:21The title of the Yiddish is pissed off at non-Jews.
00:29:30It's the world kept silent.
00:29:34This idea that the Jews feel unseen, their sorrows unappreciated.
00:29:41And what we have in the Yiddish is the way Holocaust survivors talk.
00:29:45He wrote this for a very specific audience.
00:29:48But it was not written for those who did not read Yiddish or didn't have access to Jewish culture and Jewish languages to access that book.
00:30:01The French is poetic, symbolic.
00:30:06It doesn't stick its finger in anybody's chest.
00:30:10It points at a kind of cosmic catastrophe.
00:30:15This is the original copy that nobody wanted, but it's all falling apart.
00:30:25In Night, which was translated from the Yiddish and shortened.
00:30:31Because no publisher would have taken the full version.
00:30:34In fact, they rejected even the shorter version.
00:30:36The book was published, did not, I think, get a lot of attention at first, but then, you know, had this extraordinary life.
00:30:49The night that is described here still hangs over many parts of the world, and no one, nor anything can promise us that it won't threaten us tomorrow.
00:31:03He brings us to Auschwitz with him.
00:31:09It is both this specific account of this boy's traumatic experience, and it's at the same time this kind of eternal, mythical account.
00:31:19I witnessed hangings in the camp.
00:31:25One day, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three victims in chains, and one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel.
00:31:40To hang a young boy in front of thousands of spectators was no light matter.
00:31:48The head of the camp read the verdict.
00:31:51All eyes wore on the child.
00:31:54The three victims mounted together onto the chairs.
00:31:58The three necks were placed at the same moment within the noses.
00:32:01Long live liberty, cried the two adults.
00:32:07But the child was silent.
00:32:10At the sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over.
00:32:14Total silence throughout the camp.
00:32:17The two adults were no longer alive.
00:32:20But the third rope was still moving.
00:32:23Being so light, so light, the child was still alive.
00:32:28For more than half an hour, he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes.
00:32:40And behind me, I heard, Where is God now?
00:32:45And I heard a voice within me answer him, He is hanging here on these gallows.
00:32:51Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night.
00:33:04Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dreams to dust.
00:33:13If I survived, it must be for some reason.
00:33:16History is vital.
00:33:19You can't understand the Holocaust without knowing the history.
00:33:23But you need more than the history.
00:33:27You have to be able to imagine some of these things.
00:33:30You will never know why, and Ellie said this early on, if you weren't there, you won't know.
00:33:36You have to take students and readers further than that.
00:33:39You have to help them to imagine what is it like, for example, to get up in the morning and you're starving.
00:33:49And when you go to bed at night, you're still starving.
00:33:52And knowing you're going to get up the next morning, you're also going to be starving.
00:33:57And it may all end and you're being shot or sent to the gas chamber.
00:34:01How do we help people to imagine what that must have been like?
00:34:05But even if you read all the books, all the documents by all the survivors, you would still not know.
00:34:14Only those who were there know what it meant being there.
00:34:20While I write, what else could I do?
00:34:30I write to bear witness.
00:34:33The more I remembered, the more I felt excluded and alone.
00:34:38Whom was I to lean on?
00:34:54I shunned love, aspiring only to silence, aspiring only to madness.
00:35:03I think the war was a genius, universal genius, human genius.
00:35:10Like a flail.
00:35:12And I think that everyone of us who had experienced this war,
00:35:17either as a victim, as a police officer, or even as a witness,
00:35:23still remains a trace of this genius that will happen one day.
00:35:27So, Elie had a part of him that was very, very difficult to reach and very tough.
00:35:37I thought he would never have children.
00:35:40The first time I met him was at my friend's.
00:35:45This was at a dinner party in her house, and she was my closest friend.
00:35:50And she said to me,
00:35:52You're meeting Elie Wiesel.
00:35:54I just want you to know he's a very interesting guy,
00:35:58but not somebody you would ever think of marrying.
00:36:01After this dinner, we had one date, and we both knew that it was going to be.
00:36:11Once he met Marian, a switch occurred.
00:36:16She released in him the thirst to live a little bit more normally as a human being.
00:36:24Of what does a man dream when he is forty years old and has made the decision consecrated by the law of Moses to make a home with the woman he loves?
00:36:37Custom dictates that before his wedding an orphan go to meditate at the grave of his parents.
00:36:44But this groom's parents, like millions of others, had no grave of their own.
00:36:48All creation was their cemetery.
00:36:54He had told me from the beginning he didn't want children.
00:36:58He said, I don't want to bring a child into this world.
00:37:02I convinced him.
00:37:06When Elisha was born, Elie became more religious.
00:37:12He had never stopped being religious.
00:37:15He uncovered it.
00:37:17It was like peeling off layers of non-religion.
00:37:22And his true self emerged, which was religious.
00:37:27At this particular time, Elisha did tremendous traveling.
00:37:31He would leave Elisha notes, and he'd say, I'm not here, but I will be back.
00:37:37And tomorrow we shall celebrate again, my son.
00:37:40I would say to myself, I can't believe that he's leaving these notes to this, like, three-year-old.
00:37:45And when I see my son, I tell him stories.
00:37:50And I sing him tunes about tales to be told one day by him.
00:37:56And then he smiles.
00:37:59And his smile is not his alone.
00:38:03His smile is my grandfather's, who went to his death,
00:38:08perhaps dancing and singing about my son.
00:38:16My son there is the name of my father.
00:38:19One day he saw the number of my aunts.
00:38:21He said, who will it do?
00:38:23And why?
00:38:25And who were the wicked people who did that?
00:38:26And why did they do it with the entire Jewish people?
00:38:31And why?
00:38:32For a whole hour.
00:38:34It's something he knows, who knows about.
00:38:38It wasn't easy for Elisha as he went through school.
00:38:43Everywhere he was, Elisha's son, he didn't have a chance to be himself.
00:38:50It was very difficult to be a six- or seven-year-old,
00:38:55and you're out at the playground talking about what do your parents do for a living.
00:38:59And one kid is, oh, my dad, you know, he used to be in the Israeli Air Force,
00:39:03and now he flies LL plane.
00:39:05And the other kid is, oh, my dad's a pharmacy.
00:39:06He gets medicine to help sick people.
00:39:09And I'm like, I think something really bad happened to my dad,
00:39:12and now he writes or talks about it.
00:39:14It was very confusing.
00:39:16How do you ground yourself in your parents' career around that?
00:39:21I don't think I really processed night until I traveled with my father to Seaget in 1995 with my cousin Steve.
00:39:31My father almost, I saw him almost as a radio transmitter that could pick up frequencies that no one else was picking up.
00:39:48And it's because he was picking up the ghosts, and he made them real for us.
00:39:52Even if he didn't talk about them, the way it weighed on him made it extremely real.
00:40:04And it really was on that trip that I think it hit in a deep way for the first time
00:40:11that the Nazis had killed a woman who should have grown up to be my aunt.
00:40:16The transformation in, I think, American Jewish awareness of Holocaust and the breakthrough of Ellie's recognition came at the Six Day War.
00:40:31Everybody was convinced the Holocaust is about to occur again.
00:40:36With the success of the Holocaust TV show, suddenly you could teach the Holocaust in schools, right?
00:40:43It could be part of the curriculum.
00:40:47Prior to the 70s, 80s, survivors were not encouraged to talk about what they endured.
00:40:53And Ellie was perhaps the first person to encourage them.
00:40:59No one has taught us more than Elie Wiesel.
00:41:03His life is testimony that the human spirit endures and prevails.
00:41:07Memory can fail us, for it can fade as the generations change.
00:41:13But Ellie Wiesel has helped make the memory of the Holocaust eternal.
00:41:18Ellie, we present you with this medal as an expression of our gratitude for your life's work.
00:41:33Ellie was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal.
00:41:35What happened the week that Ellie was going to receive the medal was the whole uproar about Bidberg.
00:41:42Reagan was going to go to Germany for a state visit.
00:41:45And he was asked by President Kohl to visit a cemetery of German soldiers.
00:41:51And it turns out that there were Waffen-SS soldiers buried in that cemetery.
00:41:56And so this got a tremendous amount of publicity.
00:41:59The Holocaust must never be forgotten by any of us.
00:42:05And in not forgetting it, we should make it clear that we're determined the Holocaust must never take place again.
00:42:13And I think that it would be very hurtful and all it would do is leave me looking as if I caved in in the face of some unfavorable attention.
00:42:27I think that there's nothing wrong with visiting that cemetery where those young men are victims of Nazism also.
00:42:35Even though they were fighting in the German uniform drafted into service to carry out the hateful wishes of the Nazis, they were victims just as surely as the victims in the concentration camps.
00:42:51And I feel that there's much to be gained from this and in strengthening our relationship with the German people who, believe me, live in constant penance.
00:43:06All these who have come along in these later years for what their predecessors did and for which they're very ashamed.
00:43:13We were in a hotel room in Washington, there for the event.
00:43:20And one after the other, many of the important leaders of the Jewish organizations came to see Elie.
00:43:32They came to the room in the hotel and they pleaded with Elie.
00:43:37They didn't want him to go against the president's wishes.
00:43:43And they felt that it was better to leave things unsaid.
00:43:51Well, do we have a...
00:43:52We have about five minutes.
00:43:53Well, why don't we take your chairs over here?
00:43:56Where would you like to sit in your room?
00:43:59Do you know that we are your friends?
00:44:01Yes.
00:44:02We have your friends.
00:44:03We have been friends.
00:44:04What have you been hoping for?
00:44:05You are.
00:44:06You are.
00:44:07You know, we have been...
00:44:08We have been friends for many, many years.
00:44:10We still are.
00:44:11Very, very devoted to them.
00:44:12And we came a few days ago.
00:44:14Don't leave him.
00:44:15I feel the same thing.
00:44:16We are on the same side.
00:44:18We are with you.
00:44:20We are trying simply to help you.
00:44:23To help you stay in a chill hours in the country.
00:44:27I know the difficult.
00:44:28Of course we will.
00:44:29We have to make decisions.
00:44:31I know that.
00:44:32But we are here to help you.
00:44:33To gain some background and some understanding of why certain words hurt us.
00:44:44Not you.
00:44:45Certain words hurt us.
00:44:46Or certain expressions.
00:44:47It's nothing that will change our friendship for you.
00:44:52Or our admiration for you.
00:44:54We are together.
00:44:56Well, I think that we are all the victims right now.
00:45:01A lack of understanding.
00:45:02Let me make clear what is taking place.
00:45:05I have to say that I have always believed forgiveness is divine.
00:45:11But I don't think I am ever going to be able to forgive the press for their handling of this and what they have done.
00:45:17When the cemetery there was picked, Helmut himself did not know the presence of about 30 graves of SS troops.
00:45:25And I did not mean, and I said they were victims too, that their experience in any way was parallel to yours.
00:45:38I simply meant that I think everyone who died in that war, on all sides, were victims of the Nazi terror, the horror that that man loosed on the world.
00:45:51Even in cold, when that was decided, was not aware.
00:45:55And there, in fact, he needed a personal visit.
00:45:58And, as you know, the tombstones there are flush with the ground.
00:46:02And it had snowed.
00:46:06And he, in good faith, said, no, there are no SS in the cemetery.
00:46:13Well, I think it's safe to say that the president's remarks during his entire trip in Germany will draw a distinction between the German soldier and the SS.
00:46:26And that he will in no way condemn, I mean, approve or say any kind of approving word regarding SS, Nazis, or the Third Reich.
00:46:39In order to diminish the publicity, the White House set the stage in a small room instead of the larger room,
00:46:45because they didn't want the publicity of Eli receiving the medal and what he might say.
00:46:51It turns out their plans didn't work out because NBC broadcast Eli's speech live.
00:46:59Let's first give this medal to my son.
00:47:09I am grateful to you for the medal.
00:47:12But this medal is not mine alone.
00:47:14It belongs to all those who remember what SS killers have done to their victims.
00:47:20It was given to me by the American people for my writings, teaching, and for my testimony.
00:47:28While I feel responsible for the living, I feel equally responsible to the dead.
00:47:35Their memory dwells in my memory.
00:47:39Forty years ago, a young man awoke and he found himself an orphan in an orphaned world.
00:47:45What have I learned in the last forty years? Small things.
00:47:49I learned the perils of language and those of silence.
00:47:54I learned that in extreme situations when human lives and dignity are at stake, neutrality is a sin.
00:48:01It helps the killers, not the victims.
00:48:05But I have also learned that suffering confers no privileges.
00:48:08It all depends what one does with it.
00:48:11And this is why survivors of whom you spoke, Mr. President, have tried to teach their contemporaries
00:48:18how to build on ruins.
00:48:21How to invent hope in a world that offers none.
00:48:25How to proclaim faith to a generation that has seen it shamed and mutilated.
00:48:31We believe that memory is the answer, perhaps the only answer.
00:48:37Mr. President, I wouldn't be the person I am and you wouldn't respect me for what I am.
00:48:45If I were not to tell you also of the sadness that is in my heart for what happened during the last week,
00:48:53and I am sure that you too are sad for the same reasons.
00:48:57Our tradition commands us, quote, to speak truth to power.
00:49:05So may I speak to you, Mr. President, with respect and admiration.
00:49:10For I know of your commitment to humanity.
00:49:13And therefore I am convinced, as you have told us earlier when we spoke,
00:49:18that you were not aware of the presence of SS graves in the Bidberg Cemetery.
00:49:23Of course you didn't know.
00:49:24But now we all are aware.
00:49:28May I, Mr. President, if it's possible at all, implore you
00:49:34to do something else, to find a way, to find another way, another side.
00:49:40That place, Mr. President, is not your place.
00:49:45Your place is with the victims of the SS.
00:49:48Oh, we know there are political and strategic reasons.
00:49:52But this issue, as all issues related to that awesome event, transcends politics and diplomacy.
00:50:01The issue here is not politics, but good and evil.
00:50:04And we must never confuse them.
00:50:08For I have seen the SS at work, and I have seen their victims.
00:50:13But, Mr. President, I know and I understand, we all do, that you seek reconciliation.
00:50:18And so do I, so do we.
00:50:20And I, too, wish to attain true reconciliation with the German people.
00:50:27I do not believe in collective guilt, nor in collective responsibility.
00:50:33Only the killers were guilty.
00:50:37Their sons and daughters are not.
00:50:41And I believe, Mr. President, that we can, and we must work together with them.
00:50:48And with all people.
00:50:50And we must work to bring peace and understanding to a tormented world.
00:50:55That, as you know, is still awaiting redemption.
00:51:09And Ellie told me that after a speech, Ellie thought that he might have convinced Reagan.
00:51:16Until George Bush came up to him and said, so you'll, so you'll go with us.
00:51:21He speaks just now that the President would go to Bergen-Belsen, and he will go to Bitburg.
00:51:27So apparently your plea has not at least immediately been answered.
00:51:31Does that surprise you?
00:51:33No.
00:51:35I said earlier, I'm romantic, you know, I'm a big romantic.
00:51:38I saw that since I will make this plea to him, I implore him that he will get up and say, okay.
00:51:47You didn't really expect that.
00:51:48Mr. Wiesel, what you did today was really quite extraordinary.
00:51:52A nationwide television, in effect, giving the President something of a moral lecture here.
00:51:58What were your thoughts about doing that?
00:52:00No, I am not a moralist. I'm a teacher.
00:52:02I'm not a politician. That's my strength.
00:52:04You were giving him a lesson.
00:52:06No, I told him a story. I'm a storyteller.
00:52:09He made people think about what they were here for and what was important and what was not.
00:52:17He was able to translate it into terms that touched people.
00:52:21Dear Elie Wiesel, we have been told that you said when your son was born that you felt sorry for him coming into this ugly and evil world.
00:52:35After a second thought, however, you drew a different conclusion, thinking of yourself as a link in a long, long chain of generations.
00:52:48I think it would be appropriate that your son, with such a precious burden on his shoulders, should follow you up to the podium when you receive the Peace Prize.
00:53:11It was a very, very exciting time. But everybody reacted differently. They asked Alicia at the time. In 1986, he was 14. They said, how does it affect you? And his answer was, my allowance will increase. That's it.
00:53:37I had realized, as a young person, at age 14, that my identity was very much viewed as being in the shadow of my father.
00:53:50For me, it was just the epitome of everything I didn't want, being known further as just an appendage to my father.
00:53:58It's 3.35 in the morning on his birthday, 1990.
00:54:02Dear Dad, I'm writing this letter at a rather late hour. I went with a friend to see a hardcore band, the Circle Jerks, play at the Ritz.
00:54:10The slam dancing was rough and there were some people who got hurt, nothing too serious.
00:54:14All the injuries were unintended. The dance is a violent one and these things happen.
00:54:18I know you don't want to accept any such analogy, but to some extent I feel it is applicable to us.
00:54:24We are driven in different directions, as no two dancers can ever be going in the exact same direction.
00:54:30We both get injured from time to time, even by each other, and yet we both get up a bit dazed and rejoin the dance.
00:54:36Our love is stronger than the occasional injuries which occur.
00:54:39I love you always. I miss you. I never wanted to hurt you.
00:54:43I never will, despite whatever I do with my life.
00:54:46Elisha.
00:54:51So here's one that he wrote to me in 1991.
00:54:55He wrote this in an Israeli bunker, as the scuds were falling, during Gulf War I.
00:55:02And this letter was actually in a sealed envelope at the time that he passed. My mom discovered it.
00:55:09These were his sort of last words to me, in case he never got another chance to tell me what was on his mind.
00:55:15And he says,
00:55:17Dear Elisha,
00:55:19If you promise not to be angry, I will tell you something. I love you.
00:55:24Should anything happen to me in Israel, I hope you will remember at least some of the things I tried to share with you.
00:55:31Remember my father, after whom you have been named.
00:55:37Remember that you are a Jew.
00:55:40Remember that even within the doubt, there is a God, the God of Israel.
00:55:45Take care of yourself. You have been and remain the center of my life.
00:55:50With infinite love, your father.
00:55:54For Elisha, and for me as well, having babies has been that process of coming back to ourselves and our centers and our upbringings, our faith.
00:56:12The friendly bees are ladybugs.
00:56:15The ladybugs.
00:56:17Yeah.
00:56:18They don't bite.
00:56:20They don't bite.
00:56:21They don't bite anyone.
00:56:24What memories do you have of your grandfather?
00:56:29Okay, I remember, in his study when I was little, he, every morning, he and I would both wake up early.
00:56:37up early and in the mornings he'd go up to his study and he'd put on his to fill him and I was
00:56:44I would just stand outside his study opening and closing the doors. Sometimes it feels like there's
00:56:50so much pressure on me to be like my dad and my grandpa. I definitely agree um I wow wow so 100%
00:57:06the two things Ellie asked of Elisha were that he marry a Jewish woman and that he recite Kaddish
00:57:17after he passed so Elisha did just that but somewhere in that journey Elisha realized it was
00:57:26a gift for himself.
00:57:36And then gradually Elisha started to reintroduce more tradition into our lives and to his life
00:57:46and really did a deep dive into Judaism.
00:57:51So are you ready for a quick one?
00:57:52Chess?
00:57:53All right.
00:57:54Okay baby.
00:58:00Oh.
00:58:01I like the Grand Prix variation.
00:58:03Oh.
00:58:07That's a latke?
00:58:08Yes.
00:58:09Doesn't look like a latke.
00:58:11A latke?
00:58:11I know.
00:58:12It's your son made it.
00:58:14I could really you're blaming it on me now?
00:58:18I told Anne that it was your final test before dad would marry you that you had to make a latke.
00:58:24If you wouldn't have married me you wouldn't exist.
00:58:26If it was if this was a latke?
00:58:28It's time to light the candles.
00:58:40I've always been a little afraid of religion of any kind.
00:58:45I know that I was always afraid of anything that compromised one's will and relegated it
00:58:54to an inferior position to something else which was religion.
00:59:01So I was a pagan in the family.
00:59:05My faith is a wounded faith.
00:59:08But it's not without faith.
00:59:10My wife is not without faith.
00:59:11I didn't divorce God.
00:59:12What I think was special about him was that he saw the trauma as something that has to lead to moral action.
00:59:26I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings and you suffering and humiliation.
00:59:38Human suffering anywhere concerns men and women everywhere.
00:59:43And in spite of what some extreme critics have said about me that principle applies in my life also to the Palestinians
00:59:59to whose plight I am sensitive but whose methods I deplore when they lead to violence.
01:00:09violence is not the answer.
01:00:14Both the Jewish people and the Palestinian people have lost too many sons and shed too much blood.
01:00:24This must stop.
01:00:26He didn't want to criticize Israel under any circumstance.
01:00:32He didn't want to criticize the occupation.
01:00:34He didn't want to criticize the settlers.
01:00:38He may not have agreed with them but he didn't want to criticize them ever.
01:00:46And we have learned that when people suffer we cannot remain indifferent.
01:00:51And Mr. President I cannot not tell you something.
01:00:54I have been in the former Yugoslavia last fall.
01:01:01I cannot sleep since.
01:01:03We must do something to stop the bloodshed in that country.
01:01:09The number one lesson that I learned from him was your suffering is not what defines you
01:01:18but it informs you, it can shape you, and then it's your job to make it the best tool that you can.
01:01:26If you had to summarize the greatest offering that you've been able to give your students, what would that be?
01:01:37And then I came up with a formula.
01:01:41I'm not sure it's always good but I said simply look whatever you're doing in life.
01:01:46Remember.
01:01:48Think higher and feel deeper.
01:01:50The last day of the semester a student asked Professor Riesel, Professor, can you show us the number on your arm?
01:01:55And there was dead silence in the room and without a word he took off his jacket and rolled up his sleeve and showed the number on his arm to the class.
01:02:06There were about 65 or 70 students in the class and in silence he rolled his sleeve back down and buttoned it and put his jacket back on and said next question.
01:02:16I do not believe that there are, that there could be, or even there should be novels about the Holocaust.
01:02:26Either a novel is a novel or it is not.
01:02:31And when it is about the Holocaust, it is not.
01:02:35Et moi je dois vous dire que je ne suis jamais aussi ému, jamais aussi conscient de ma responsabilité d'enseignant que lorsque je me trouve en face de ces enfants.
01:02:46Parce que je suis responsable de monde que je leur lègue et que j'ai détruit pour eux, que nous avons détruit pour eux, et maintenant à eux de le reconstruire sur des ruines.
01:03:01He developed very strong relationships with all of his students.
01:03:07I saw them being transformed.
01:03:09Part of what we had to do each semester was you would choose a book from the list of texts that you're reading and you would present, you would give a little wee presentation on the book, you know, that week.
01:03:23And everybody was always super nervous about it.
01:03:25When I got up to give the presentation and I was talking about this character who had very dark skin and those things, I realized how much it, like, affected me.
01:03:38And in the moment that I was in the class, I broke out into tears.
01:03:41Because that space was open to talk about memory, right, and to talk about things like trauma, people were open.
01:03:54Remember the enemy.
01:03:55Remember the enemy.
01:03:56And that is an attitude which is a very strong attitude.
01:04:02Imagine the victim simply saying to the torture, look, you can do whatever you want, but I will remember you.
01:04:11This is what frightens the enemy most, usual.
01:04:16Nothing frightens the enemy more.
01:04:19To be vanquished, okay, vanquished today, come back tomorrow.
01:04:24But the idea that the victim will remember the enemy, the memory will remain, that is a real punishment.
01:04:31Memory is what makes us civilized.
01:04:35You know, like, that is what makes us human.
01:04:37And never again means something to me, right?
01:04:43It's that is that I have a responsibility that goes beyond myself and my beliefs and that I'm a part of this global community.
01:04:55I grew up in the very southwest part of Germany and all my classmates and myself were very much interested in political questions.
01:05:06One day I met somebody and he said, read the book Night by Elie Wiesel.
01:05:12I couldn't manage more than one or two pages a day because it moved me so much.
01:05:20And so I said to myself, I have to know Elie Wiesel.
01:05:26And I packed my pocket and went to Boston University and studied there.
01:05:31The first time a professor said to me, Reinhold, it is good that you are here.
01:05:38And I said to myself, as much as you will learn from me, I will learn from you.
01:05:46And we have spoken a lot, discussed a lot.
01:05:50And then I signed up and translated the conversations and then translated and published.
01:05:56And that gave my life a different direction.
01:06:04I hope that there are more and more young people you are kind in Germany, not only for me, but for Germany.
01:06:12That is the hope.
01:06:14And you must strengthen that hope.
01:06:16And therefore you become not only educators, but with your own lives.
01:06:20You are living examples for others to follow.
01:06:26The fact that Elie said, I'm not going to be silent.
01:06:45And so much of my life, people tell you this tall, dark skinned black man to shut up.
01:06:53That what you have to say is not that important.
01:06:57Who you are is not important.
01:06:59And that 100 page book says, no, I got a story.
01:07:03The commentary in the Talmud is, if you are my witnesses, I am God.
01:07:12If you are not, I am not.
01:07:15My God, my God, I just want to say that, really, to say that and to accept it as part of belief.
01:07:22I give up, which means what Heschel said, you know, God in quest of man, in search of man.
01:07:27You need, God needs human beings, us little specks of dust to be God.
01:07:33The mystical teaching tells us that it is possible for any person to bring the messiah to the whole world.
01:07:43And I believe in it.
01:07:44I believe today that it is possible for you or me or anyone to bring a moment, a messianic moment to each other.
01:07:59If I could simply bring a messianic moment into the life of one person, I think that my life would have been justified.
01:08:09Night is to me, of course, a very special book.
01:08:11It is the basis for all the other books, the foundation.
01:08:18Good afternoon.
01:08:19Good afternoon.
01:08:20Good afternoon.
01:08:20I'm going to start chapter one of Night by Elie Wiesel.
01:08:28We're going to learn about Elie's family and sort of his introduction to Judaism,
01:08:33like who he is as a person.
01:08:34And we're going to slowly transition into this like ominous mood of the Holocaust sort of brewing in the background.
01:08:40Let's open up to chapter one.
01:08:42This is our five to six weeks to really focus on Elie Wiesel.
01:08:47I met him in 1941.
01:08:49I was almost 13 and deeply observant.
01:08:53Raise your hand if you're 13 in here.
01:08:55Look at you.
01:08:57So in a lot of ways, this is a story that could relate to us.
01:09:00Let's keep going.
01:09:01Kids know that six million people who are Jewish died and were killed.
01:09:06And so they have some context about like how Hitler came to power.
01:09:10They have some context about what it means to practice Judaism
01:09:14and some general ideas about what the world was going through around World War II.
01:09:19Regular, normal Germans that were sophisticated and intelligent, they conformed with Hitler.
01:09:27Six million Jews were murdered because of the fact that they were deemed as genetically
01:09:33inferior due to the fact that maybe they weren't fully German or that they had disabilities.
01:09:38How is a mood of being in the ghettos different from the mood of children playing in the street?
01:09:43How did the mood change in ghettos?
01:09:45Back then, ghettos also described something negative that still, they still mean something negative to this day.
01:09:53They're really trying to see, are we similar to Wiesel?
01:09:57Would we react in that way?
01:09:59Can we imagine it?
01:10:00Most of us cannot.
01:10:01How did normal people get to this point where a tragedy like this could happen?
01:10:06The Nazi, they controlled everything, everybody hearing the same thing all at the same time.
01:10:14So if everybody hears the same thing all at the same time, they would all think,
01:10:19oh, since he's doing it, I should do it.
01:10:21People were ignorant to the idea that they were just killing innocent people that they didn't know.
01:10:26Most of our students are from Newark, live in Newark.
01:10:29They come from backgrounds that are not, they've never experienced anything like the Holocaust.
01:10:35But the context, the sort of underbrewing tones of violence, in a lot of ways, the undertones are similar.
01:10:41Our beliefs in God, how does his relationship with his father shift?
01:10:45He's probably going to be feeling anger, for being like having to take care of his father at 16 in a situation like this.
01:10:51I feel like everything bad that happened made we so stronger, since now he has to care for his father.
01:10:58I kind of disagree when Isabel said that made him stronger, in the end that he was still broken down emotionally.
01:11:04This is dehumanization, because one of the main things that makes a human human is them having
01:11:10the right and the ability to choose.
01:11:12I feel like freedom is being able to choose life or death.
01:11:15And I feel like freedom is being able to have an option.
01:11:18And I feel like you cannot define freedom, some people define freedom for themselves.
01:11:23God hasn't given up on Ellie yet, but Ellie is trying to give up on God.
01:11:28But God is still giving him chances and still letting him survive.
01:11:33It's not God. I feel like it's more like fate.
01:11:37I feel as if God didn't create the Holocaust, because I feel as if he gives us a choice to choose.
01:11:43So it wasn't really his fault that the Holocaust happened.
01:11:46Maybe God is putting him through this to make him understand that God is not just there to make you happy.
01:11:52God is there to just lead you through life in general.
01:11:56What was the most impactful part of the book for you?
01:11:58The most impactful part was when his father died.
01:12:02This is powerful to me, because this is like a different situation.
01:12:05And I don't know what to expect, because I've never experienced it.
01:12:09But I feel like if I did, and I had to let go of my mom,
01:12:14I didn't even know what I would do with myself.
01:12:17I feel as if when he wrote this book, he was trying to let go of his pain,
01:12:23so he won't have to feel the pain of having to relive those moments over and over and over again.
01:12:30This isn't the same world we Sel was in when he was younger,
01:12:34because we even see that change in his name throughout the book.
01:12:37He's called Eliezer, but as an author, and when we're talking about him in a present tense
01:12:44before he passed, we say Elie. That just shows that he's now in a different world.
01:12:49So even though Elie is free, Eliezer was never freed from his past.
01:12:54Elie we Sel is free, Eliezer is not.
01:12:59I love you.
01:13:00I love you too. I'll see you in eight days.
01:13:03Why is it that my town still enchants me so?
01:13:18Is it because in my memory it is entangled with my childhood?
01:13:24Evil remains hidden and time suspended.
01:13:29In my fantasy, I still see myself in it.
01:13:33In a tiny place like Siget, until 1944, people lived together.
01:13:44Hungarian gendarmerie was here present all the time.
01:13:47They even lived in Jewish homes.
01:13:53And suddenly overnight, they became the perpetrators.
01:13:57I saw them with their bundles on their shoulders.
01:14:04The Hungarian gendarmes were driving them mad with fear.
01:14:09My sisters and myself, we went to the wells and brought them water.
01:14:13Then, three days later, I was myself among them.
01:14:28Still am.
01:14:28Are most of the people who visit Siget, as tourists, aware of the Jewish history?
01:14:36Or do they just come here because...
01:14:37Most of them are not.
01:14:38Yeah.
01:14:39Most of them are not.
01:14:40I would say that 90% of them are amazed that Siget was actually a Jewish town.
01:14:47Mm-hmm.
01:15:05Everything is the same.
01:15:06Furniture, even the wallpaper.
01:15:10And it is so much the same.
01:15:16That at times, I'm afraid that perhaps the door might open
01:15:23and the young boy that used to look like me will come out
01:15:28and he will ask me very innocently, tell me, what are you doing here, Franger?
01:15:36What are you doing in my dream, in my tale?
01:15:48We're looking for Eliezer, right?
01:15:52Because your grandfather was named after his grandfather.
01:15:58I'm not sure.
01:16:09Where?
01:16:10This one is huge.
01:16:11That's a...
01:16:13Benjamin. It's Yehuda Benjamin. You see?
01:16:15This is the wrong one, then.
01:16:16Yeah, it's not this one.
01:16:24Oh!
01:16:24Possibly.
01:16:25I think that's a meme.
01:16:26It's Eliezer.
01:16:27Oh, wait.
01:16:28Oh, that is a meme.
01:16:30It's Eliezer.
01:16:30It's Eliezer.
01:16:31It's Eliezer.
01:16:32This is Eliezer, yes.
01:16:34Okay, it should be Ben.
01:16:35Ben.
01:16:36Kimha.
01:16:36Shalom.
01:16:37Halevi.
01:16:39Halevi.
01:16:40Yeah, this is it.
01:16:41We found it.
01:16:42This is my great-great-grandfather.
01:16:44Eliezer Lazar Wiesel, Halevi.
01:16:46You're going to try and find it for me.
01:16:52Are you going to try and find it for me?
01:16:53Yes, I am going to try and find it for me.
01:16:55But I personally don't try.
01:16:56Uh-huh.
01:17:03Wow.
01:17:04I've never seen it spelled like that, but that's how it's pronounced.
01:17:34I visited all the places which had once filled my landscape.
01:17:46I searched for the people out of my path, but I did not find them.
01:17:52The only place where I felt at home was the Jewish cemetery.
01:17:58This was the only place in Siget that reminded me of Siget.
01:18:02I wandered from one grave to another.
01:18:06I had bought some candles.
01:18:08I lit them, placing one wherever I found a familiar name.
01:18:14The wind blew them out, and suddenly tears strangled me.
01:18:22A terrible certainty overcame me, for the town that had once been mine never was.
01:18:31My hometown was only famous for the concentration camp Sachsenhausen.
01:18:48Unfortunately, there were no Jews left.
01:18:54They came first for the communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a communist.
01:19:03Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Jew.
01:19:10Then they came for me, and by that time, no one was left to speak up.
01:19:28I learned that Elie Wiesel had a type of blood cancer.
01:19:36He was sent to us to participate in a clinical trial with a drug we have never used before.
01:19:43Hello, Dr. Lynch speaking.
01:19:47I had a phone call with his son, Alicia, and talking to him for the first time wasn't that easy.
01:19:56giving the life of his father into hands of a German doctor, a drug that has never been tested in New York.
01:20:07He said, if there is a chance, and if we have an option, even if it is an experimental treatment,
01:20:15maybe we give it a chance, but the final decision has to be made by my father.
01:20:22Elie Wiesel responded very nicely, but after a year, the treatment stopped working.
01:20:30Alicia said, if there is nothing else we can do, then I want to take him home.
01:20:35I remember in the moments after my father passed, there was this rush, like my blood rushing in my head.
01:20:45I had to sit down because there was this voice in my head saying that my father hadn't gone anywhere,
01:20:57that he was with me and always would be.
01:21:00I believe that life does not end with death.
01:21:12I feel the presence of my father all the time.
01:21:20Same is of course with my mother and my little sister, I feel their presence.
01:21:26Which means that death had their own presence.
01:21:30It's up for me to accept it, and I do.
01:21:35It doesn't mean I don't believe, I don't know.
01:21:38But between belief and knowledge, there is an abyss.
01:21:42But what would one be without the other?
01:21:45The other?
01:21:50The Ecclesiastes
01:21:54The Ecclesiastes
01:21:55The Ecclesiastes
01:22:00B'munah sh'leyma b'viyat ha-mashiyah ch'anim amin
01:22:18B'munah sh'leyma b'viyat ha-mashiyah
01:22:30V'yaf'a l'pi'yi sh'yitma'me'cha ach'ake'loho
01:22:43V'chol yom sh'yavu
01:23:00Sh'leyma b'vi'at ha lusty
01:23:19¶¶
01:23:49¶¶
Comments